Welcome to Day #4
Igniting the Next Generation
Empower
Welcome to Day 4 of the Igniting the Next Generation: Empower Summit—your launchpad to inspiration, transformation, and the tools to empower today's youth for a brighter tomorrow!
EMPOWER
Virtual Summit
Topic #1
How to Get More Playing Time
with Rich Grogan | Author, Mentor, Lifelong Martial Artist and Hockey Dad
Topic #2
The Wellness Umbrella- Staying Well While Helping Others
with Brody Powell | Suicide Prevention and Wellness Speaker
Topic 3
The Power of Mentorship
with Melahni Ake | Everyday Leaders Leadership Evangelist
Topic #4
Your Job Isn't to Keep Them Safe
with John Eades | Author, Creator of The Optimistic Outlook & LinkedIn Top Voice
Topic 5
Be Your Own Superhero
with Christy Marvel | Zig Ziglar Certified Life Coach and Public Speaker
Meet Your Host
Rich Grogan
Teaches athletes how to get noticed for the right reasons, earn trust, communicate with confidence, lead with integrity, and become the kind of teammate coaches want
Brody Powell
Passionate about helping adults recognize warning signs, respond with confidence, and create environments where young people feel seen, valued, and supported.
Melahni Ake
Empower leaders to believe in themselves, embrace daily growth, and create the change they want to see in the world.
John Eades
Named one of LinkedIn's Top Voices, where his newsletters have over 300k subscribers
Christy Marvel
Her mission is simple: to help people realize that their greatest challenges can become the very source of their greatest strength.
Rich Grogan
How to Get More Playing Time
Coach Rich Grogan tackles the question every sports parent asks: How can my athlete earn more playing time? Drawing from 40 years of coaching, he explains why minutes are not won through complaints, comparisons, or pressure—they are earned through trust. In this practical presentation, Rich reveals the myths that keep players stuck and the habits that help athletes stand out, communicate well, work harder, and become stronger people both on and off the field.
Coach Rich Grogan is the founder of Warrior Confidence and the author of Becoming Bully Proof and How to Get More Ice Time.
He is a lifelong coach, teacher, and mentor with over 50 years in and around ice hockey, along with decades of experience across sports, martial arts, education, and leadership.
He is a 7th Degree Black Belt, Master Martial Arts Instructor, former Physical Education teacher, and mental strength and leadership coach who has spent nearly four decades helping athletes, students, and families build confidence, discipline, respect, resilience, and integrity.
Through his Warrior Confidence programs, Coach Rich teaches athletes how to get noticed for the right reasons, earn trust, communicate with confidence, lead with integrity, and become the kind of teammate coaches want on their teams.
In his presentation, How to Get More Playing Time: A Champion’s Playbook — Winning with Integrity, Coach Rich helps parents, coaches, and players better understand what coaches truly look for, how athletes can separate themselves the right way, and how families can support their player’s growth without adding unnecessary pressure, entitlement, or excuses.
Playing time is not just about talent. It is earned through character, work ethic, attitude, communication, leadership, and doing the little things right on and off the playing surface.
Brody Powell
The Wellness Umbrella- Staying Well While Helping Others
Brody Powell introduces the “Wellness Umbrella,” a simple framework that helps parents, teachers, and caregivers check their own well-being before burnout takes over. As a licensed counselor, he explains why caring for yourself is not selfish—it is essential to caring well for others. This practical presentation helps caregivers recognize when they are losing themselves in their role and take meaningful steps toward greater balance, health, and emotional strength.
Brody Powell is a Licensed Professional Counselor, author, and professional speaker based in Abilene, Texas.
Through Brody Powell; Life Potential, LLC, he helps educators, parents, counselors, and youth-serving professionals better understand suicide prevention, bullying resiliency, and sustainable wellness for the parent or educators involved.
Brody spent five years serving in school-based counseling before expanding into private practice and professional speaking. His work is rooted in both clinical experience and lived experience, including his own story of suicidal thoughts. He is passionate about helping adults recognize warning signs, respond with confidence, and create environments where young people feel seen, valued, and supported.
Brody is the creator of practical frameworks including the Wellness Umbrella, the Bully-Proof Vest of Self-Worth, and the Counseling Analogies that Stick. His presentations are known for being relatable, memorable, and immediately usable. He currently serves as President of the Big Country Counseling Association and continues to provide counseling, training, and speaking across Texas.
Known for presentations that are relatable, memorable, and immediately useful, Brody equips audiences with tools they can apply in schools, homes, counseling settings, and communities.
Melahni Ake
The Power of Mentorship
Melahni Ake challenges parents, teachers, and coaches to stop leading the next generation from exhaustion and leftovers. Drawing from her experience being mentored by Dr. John Maxwell, she explains how “The Law of the Lid” applies to every adult who wants to influence youth. This powerful presentation reveals how courage, consistency, vulnerability, and authentic confidence help adults grow first—so they can mentor young people from a place of strength, intention, and overflow.
Melahni Ake is a leadership strategist, award-winning author, multiple bestselling co-author, and the founder of Indianapolis-based Everyday Leaders Professional Coaching and Consulting.
As a Maxwell Leadership Executive Director, Melahni equips growth-driven professionals, healthcare teams, entrepreneurs, and organizations with the communication, behavioral, and organizational strategies needed to lead with confidence and courage in today’s changing world.
After more than 26 years in the medical device industry, Melahni experienced a career transition that became the catalyst for her greatest purpose—helping others discover their potential and become the leaders they were created to be. Through Everyday Leaders, she has built a platform focused on developing everyday people into influential leaders who create meaningful change in their workplaces, families, and communities.
Melahni is an 9 x published author, including her award-winning book Everyday Moments: Lessons That Transform Lives, which shares powerful stories of resilience, humility, forgiveness, and the impact of seeing the full story behind every person. She is also the creator and host of the Everyday Leaders 50in50 podcast, inspiring conversations with leaders who are making a difference around the world. She was honored in 2024 to receive Woman Leader of the Year with Aspire Johnson County, Indina, she serves on multiple boards including Rotary, PTREA (local religious education for elementary schools), local chamber ambassador and is the director of Top Floor Women, a women's business leaders monthly networking event. Since Oct 1, 2019 Melahni leads a morning leadership devotional on zoom, everyday, yes everyday.
She is actively involved in building stronger communities through mentorship, speaking engagements, leadership development, and connection.
Alongside her husband Joe of 33 years, Melahni teaches media and marketing strategies that help leaders and entrepreneurs amplify their message. Her mission is simple: empower leaders to believe in themselves, embrace daily growth, and create the change they want to see in the world.
Her passion is helping people overcome self-doubt, strengthen their voice, and develop the confidence to step into leadership. She believes leadership is not defined by a title—it is demonstrated through influence, service, and the courage to make a difference.
John Eades
Your Job Isn't to Keep Them Safe
John Eades challenges parents, coaches, and leaders to reconsider what it truly means to protect young people. While safety matters, shielding youth from every risk can quietly limit their growth. Drawing from his experience as an author, coach, and parent, John shares a powerful mindset shift and three practical ways adults can help young people move beyond fear, embrace discomfort, and choose courage when it matters most.
John Eades is an author, speaker, executive coach, and founder of LearnLoft and The Sales Infrastructure. He helps leaders and organizations strengthen performance, build healthier cultures, and lead with greater confidence, optimism, and purpose.
Recognized as one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices, John has built an audience of more than 300,000 newsletter subscribers. He is the author of Building the Best and The Optimistic Outlook, and he hosts The John Eades Podcast and The Optimistic Outlook Podcast. Together, his shows have been downloaded more than one million times. His work and insights have also been featured by Inc.com, CNBC Money, and other leading media outlets.
John combines practical leadership experience with a clear, encouraging approach that helps people take meaningful action. Whether speaking, coaching, writing, or consulting, he challenges audiences to raise their standards, strengthen their mindset, and become the kind of leaders others want to follow.
He lives in Charlotte with his wife, Amy, and their two children, John and Lucy. A former collegiate golfer at the University of Maryland, John also serves as head coach of the Holy Trinity Middle School football team.
John combines practical leadership experience with a clear, encouraging approach that helps people take meaningful action.
Christy Marvel
Be Your Own Superhero
Christy Marvel shows why rescuing young people from every struggle may weaken the very resilience adults hope to build. Drawing from her own journey through childhood trauma to success as an architect, business owner, and investor, she explains how confidence grows through competence, mistakes, and manageable challenges. This powerful presentation equips parents and mentors to coach instead of rescue, ask better questions, redefine failure, and help young people move through fear with courage.
Christy Marvel is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, Ziglar Master Coach, recording artist, and survivor who is passionate about helping others overcome adversity and unlock the power within.
Through her signature message, "Be Your Own Superhero," Christy inspires audiences to move from victimhood to victory by healing their "Little Me," confronting fear, and intentionally designing a life of purpose.
Raised in difficult circumstances and overcoming significant childhood trauma, Christy transformed her challenges into a lifelong mission of helping others discover their own resilience and potential. Before becoming a speaker and coach, she earned degrees in Architecture and Business Management, built multiple successful businesses, invested in real estate, and became a respected leader in her community.
Christy is the author of Be Your Own Superhero: Heal Your "Little Me" and Unlock the Power Within, a powerful guide to personal transformation that combines practical strategies with deeply personal stories of perseverance and hope. Expanding the book's message beyond the written page, she also released the inspirational song and music video "Little Me," a heartfelt tribute to the inner child within all of us. The song serves as a musical companion to the book's core message: that healing our past can unlock the strength needed to create a better future.
Her mission is simple: to help people realize that their greatest challenges can become the very source of their greatest strength.
"Now cape on... go be your own superhero."
Known for her authenticity, humor, and engaging storytelling, Christy speaks on resilience, personal growth, overcoming fear, intentional living, leadership, and healing from life's setbacks.
Purpose in Every Paycheck
Kyle Blackwell
Discover Financial Freedom and the Future you're Made For
Girl Drama Decoded
Sheri Gazitt
Empower Your Daughter Through The Ups & Downs of Girl Drama & Friendships
Building the Best
John G. Eades
8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success
Be Your Own Superhero
Christy Marvel
